Arthur Imperator Read Online Free Page A

refilled. “No,” he said, morosely. “Most Roman citizens don’t usually get crucifixion, it’s generally reserved for slaves, rebels, traitors. Romans get strangulation or a slit throat, but nobles get it even easier, and I expect that’s what I’ll be told to do to Constantius: lop off his head.”
    Decapitation was regarded as a relatively painless exit, he said. The eyes of the detached head sometimes moved and blinked for as long as a half minute, maybe indicating that the brain lived, but it was still a lot better than the other death throes he’d seen… the problems came if the executioner didn’t get the first blow right and had to hack at the neck to sever it. In the early days, he said, carnifexes had used an axe, but it was now regarded as more honourable to use a sword, which was trickier. You had to hit hard and exactly to sever the spine, and not just anyone could do it, he said, puffing out his chest a little.
    “One fellow, a big Saxon, fought his bindings, and I had to run around the scaffold after him, whacking away at his head and back with my sword until he collapsed and I could take off his nut,” he grumbled. “Since then, I usually have an assistant to hold the perp by his hair to keep his neck still, and I also make sure they’re blindfolded so they can’t flinch away when they see I’m about to strike.”
    Davius was settling more comfortably in his corner of the tavern when a passing centurion spotted the group. “All right, you lot,” he shouted, “ ’aven’t you got no work to do?”
    One of the soldiers turned nervously and replied: “We’re waiting for orders, sarge.”
    “Never mind that, fall in behind me, I’ve got something for you,” said the officer.
    Davius sighed. He’d have to buy his own wine now. Funny though, it was Constantius who would have ordered him executed in Bononia. In a day or so, it would be him who was executing Constantius… better go, he wanted to grind a really sharp edge to his sword.
     
    At that moment, the defeated Caesar was having his shackles removed, preparatory to be taken out of his cell to meet his conqueror. His escort took him from the underground strong room in the old castrum of Londinium and walked him, shuffling stiffly, across the parade ground to the administration building where Allectus and I were conferring with several senior officers.
    “Ah, Constantius,” my greeting must have sounded almost cordial, as his head came up in surprise. “How are you being treated?” The Caesar - I spat inwardly at the title - shook his head, uncertain. “Look,” I told him, my voice even to me sounding a tone of false bonhomie, “I won’t keep you long, just wanted to go over a couple of things with you before, er, well, before. You know.” Then I let loose. “I hear you gave my commander Lucius Cornelius a good flogging before you shamefully crucified him, and that all came after you’d given him assurances of safety if he saved his soldiers’ lives.
    “Is that true, Caesar? Is that true? And did you,” I continued without waiting, “did you also execute five other of my officers of the Bononia garrison after they had agreed to lay down arms? Is that true, too?”
    Constantius was no coward, but the natural pallor that gave him the nickname ‘Chlorus,’ or ‘Pale’ had been enhanced by his sunless incarceration and he stared back at me completely white-faced, then dropped his eyes. His voice was almost inaudible. “I did my duty, Lord.” He looked like a dog about to be dropped in the pit with a bear.
    I felt fighting anger rising in me. “You treacherously murdered those good men, and I’m going to have you punished. There will be no ransom for you, no return to your corrupt Augustus. You will be flogged like a criminal and then beheaded. I’m giving you a painful punishment, then swift death as a Roman even though you do not deserve it. You gave my officers a long and ugly death, but I am showing the world that